Self Afflicted
by DarkStarShadow
Summary: MF One Shot. Leanbow muses over his fatal error he made many years ago and the problems it's caused to himself and others.


_This is set sometime after Heir Apparent II…although I didn't really aim for a time afterwards. Where it lies canonically lies to your interpretation._

_Thank you, and enjoy._

I thought this was the end.

I honestly believed it.

If you told me then that my efforts were in vain, I would have called you a liar and asked where you got the idea.

Of course, my idea wasn't the smartest idea, now that I get to look back at it, but we all believed it would work.

We all believed in magic then.

We believed that a miracle would occur if we all believed, and we all agreed that, out of all the plans, mine was the best.

Niella knew all the little spells that would help me, Udonna was assured that I was to return home safely, Daggeron gave me his vote of confidence, my fellow Mystic Warriors thought it was the best option…even Calindor thought it was a good idea. I rested on his vote, Calindor's. What a mistake I made.

The demons of the Underworld swarmed me as I approached the gate. Niella and Udonna stood waiting in the shadows, waiting until it was all clear for them to make a run for the gates. Calindor joined me…he was supposed to aid me in all of this…he told me Daggeron couldn't make it, and then he ran halfway through the battle. I wouldn't know of Calindor's ambush on Daggeron until long after while that ungrateful traitor gloated in one of his boisterous tales he told Necrolai and I.

Speaking of Necrolai…she had been there, waiting for me. Her cackle rang out and I chased her into the gates. It was then that Niella and Udonna had caught up to me and closed the gates behind her and I…and the Master…

The Master…the name I dread. Dread…perhaps not dread…but loathe instead. He had destroyed families and villages and his minions slaughtered countless innocents in his unholy name. I wanted nothing more back then than to return the favor, but how the tides were turned…

I had the courage within me to dispatch him, I had the will and the desire to do so…and yet…I failed. Oh, I took The Master down in one mighty swoop…but Necrolai was not letting her master go so easily.

No, she sacrificed my weakened body to become his puppet. The fragment of his life force that remained from his hollow and empty shell was forced inside of me. If I had just been a tiny bit stronger…I might have been able to fight it off.

I was too weak…I…Leanbow…leader of the Mystic Warriors…was too weak to resist the soul of a dying diety…

I donned purple armor, the likes of which none had seen me in before. His first command to this warped frame of what was left of me was to take his left eye and place it in my shield. I was too weak to resist…

He literally had his eye on me from then on. I was nothing more than a whisper in a small corridor in the back of my own mind…for nearly twenty years, it was this way…I screamed in agony, begging for it all to end, but I continued relentlessly in spite of my own wishes…I did whatever he wanted.

I hated myself, and I still do. I've forgiven myself a bit now, because I realize that I had no choice; that it was all fate of circumstance, but I always wonder…

What if I had that tiny bit of strength left?

What if I wasn't alone?

What if Calindor hadn't betrayed us all and left the battlefield when I needed him?

What if Daggeron hadn't been out protecting my son that night?

I always wonder, but I never have answers. They're all little scars that won't heal, I guess.

Ah, my son. Bowen.

Where to start about him?

I watched my son, whom at the time I did not know him to be my son, go from a lonely outsider to a lonely leader of a highly disorganized resemblance of my former group. Granted, we Mystic Warriors had our faults at times, but we kept it together, and no one person was any less important than anybody else. Kids these days don't understand the severity of their foolish behavior and the repercussions of not fulfilling their responsibilities and duties…

But I digress.

My son, yes. He grew up to be a strong young man, but a bit too strong in the head, like me.

He refuses still to believe that I had anything to do with him. He can't forgive me for what I've done.

I'm a horrible father…to have disappointed him so much that he wants nothing to do with me.

There was nothing I could have done. Nothing I could have said or wished or conjured up to make Koragg go away. The Master fed off of me, leaving me with nothing to use against him besides my manic thoughts in the little box of my memories, where I had no control.

I'm ashamed to think that I ever dreamed we would all be free because of me.

I believed that I had done the right thing.

I honestly believed that I would walk away and live a peaceful life with my family, instead of having a miserable half-life without my son and wife.

I thought it was the end…


End file.
